To The Forest - Part Three
This episode is part of a larger story, Soft Touch. If you haven’t yet, you can go back and read it from the beginning right here.
I stop in the doorway of the coffee room with my phone in my hand, my eyes very wide.
“You are never gonna believe this, Sugar Maple.”
Aiden is looking very cute, lounging on one of the floor cushions by our beautiful glass and wood coffee table. Reading a book of poetry, with Luna curled up against his side. He lowers the book to look up at me, then pauses when he sees that I’m covering the mic of my phone with my hand.
“Believe what?” he asks, surprised and faintly alarmed. “Who are you talking to?”
I put my phone on speaker as I come over to sit down next to him, being careful not to squash Luna.
“Devin, can you just say all of that again?” I say into my phone. “Aiden’s here now.”
Aiden’s eyebrows fly all the way up.
“Devin?” he whispers, his incredulous voice picking up speed. “You’re fucking joking, the - the security guard from the place we-?”
“Hey, Aiden!” Devin calls cheerfully, his voice slightly garbled through the speakers. “How’s it been, dude? All good at the Archives? Good luck on your employee review, by the way! It’s coming up, right?”
Aiden looks at me, his blue eyes full of obvious bewilderment.
“Well, obviously I talk about you when I talk to other people!” I whisper, on the defensive. “It’s not like Devin and I feel the need to keep things from each other!”
Fighting back a disbelieving laugh, Aiden leans closer to my phone to answer.
“Um - hey, man, yeah! It’s been good, thanks. How are things at the Forest Industries Council? Had any ghost hunters break in lately?”
“Nah, nah,” Devin answers, breathing out a laugh. “Turns out that doesn’t happen so often. Your visit remains the most interesting day I’ve ever had at work.”
Aiden and I exchange a wide grin.
“What’s going on, Devin?” Aiden rumbles.
“Alright, so - you two are some top-shelf ghost hunters, right? Jamie told me you’ve already caught two, which is more than anyone else I know. I’ve got an aunt who has the Vision, but it’s, ah - unreliable. She can only see ghosts, like… I dunno, seventeen percent of the time?”
“Okay?” Aiden answers, biting back a laugh, apparently judging it pointless to ask Devin how he arrived at that number.
“Well, my grandma is pretty sure she’s got a ghost in her attic, so I wanted to ask if you two could come investigate it.”
Aiden’s eyebrows shoot up to kiss the glossy strand of chestnut tumbling over his temple.
“Ah, Devin,” he says gently, after a startled pause, “I really don’t think - have you gone up there and had a look around, yourself?”
“Yeah, and I didn’t find anything. But I wouldn’t, would I? I don’t have the Vision.”
Aiden looks to me for help, but I don’t see a fault in that logic. He barely suppresses a groan when he realizes that, then takes my phone from me.
“Look, I appreciate your confidence in us, but it might be a little - misplaced?” Aiden dodges as I try to indignantly dig my elbow into his ribs. “I just meant that we’re not professionally qualified to investigate anything.”
“I get that, but - if you could just come look around,” Devin answers, in a pleading voice. “Even if it’s just to tell her there’s nothing up there. ‘Cause then, you know, maybe she won’t be freaked out anymore, and she won’t feel the need to ask her grandson to sleep on her couch every night, just in case someone needs to protect her?”
Aiden pauses again, his expression softening. “Did her grandson agree to that?”
“He did.”
“How many nights have you spent on her couch, dude?”
“Ask my lower back. See if you can hear the answer over all the cracking and popping.” Devin lets out a low groan, then goes on desperately, “Turns out your mid-twenties is already too old to be doing this shit. At least not every night. Pretty sure my girl is starting to miss me, too. She’s been snuggling her cat instead of me for too many nights in a row.”
“Aww, Aslan!” I jump in, clasping my hands in delight. “How is that sweet old fluffball? It’s been ages since you sent me a picture, Devin!”
“What? I sent one like two days ago, did it - shit, man, it didn’t go through!”
“Okay, let’s - let’s stay on topic,” Aiden cuts in, trying not to laugh, flashing me an incredulous look. “What do you want us to do, Devin?”
“Guess…” He thinks it over for a moment. “Catch the ghost, take it somewhere else? Like with a spider. Shit, wait, is that not a nice comparison to make? I didn’t mean it! I got the respect and all that, there just can’t be a ghost hanging out in my grandma’s attic. Or - maybe it can, I dunno. So long as it states its intentions, and it isn’t a bad housemate. We can decide when you guys catch it.”
Aiden is frowning deeply, and I’m grinning happily, so -
“Can I call you back, Devin? Aiden and I just need to talk about it.”
~~~~
“We should not be doing this,” Aiden whispers again, bending to speak in my ear.
I gently push his face away, smiling eagerly as I look around at the tidy little kitchen. Shafts of late afternoon sunlight slant in through the windows, dappling the leaves of the herbs growing in the sills. The orange-gold glow catches in the steam puffing up from the stove, illuminating it as it swirls slowly upwards.
Devin is speaking in very fast Spanish to his grandma. She’s a tiny woman, with long silvery hair and enormous cinnamon-brown eyes to match her grandson’s. She keeps glancing nervously between me and Aiden, smiling politely at us while Devin talks to her.
She looks tired, like she hasn’t had good sleep in too long. Much the same way Devin looks.
“Official ghost hunters, okay?” Devin finishes, gesturing with all the sincere enthusiasm in the world to me and Aiden. “The very best! They’re gonna take care of it, no problem.”
Aiden widens his eyes in alarm, but Devin’s grandma immediately turns to beam up at us, and he quickly pulls a reassuring smile onto his face. She gives us a wave of welcome, then asks us something in Spanish, gesturing with her wooden spoon to the stove.
“She wants to know if you two want some food,” Devin explains.
“Oh, yes!” I drop down into one of the kitchen chairs, grinning happily. “Always! I’ll admit I’ve been thinking about it ever since we set foot in here. It smells so good.”
Aiden seems on the verge of telling me off and pulling me back to my feet, but he takes a second look at the golden, crispy pastries frying on the stove, then drops down beside me instead.
Apparently this was the right answer, because Devin’s grandma happily sets about setting up plates of food for all three of us.
“Can you tell us what’s been going on?” Aiden asks. “When did all of this start?”
She launches into an explanation, and Devin speaks with her, repeating everything she says in English.
“She’s not sure exactly when it started, but it was a while ago. One night she heard something fall in the attic when no one was up there.”
I’m pretty sure I know the answer, but I ask just in case. “Does anyone else live here? Was anyone else here that night?”
“No and no, so she thought something must have fallen over on its own. But now she thinks she hears someone moving around in there almost every night. When she goes up there in the morning, sometimes things have been knocked over. One night she opened the door to see what was going on, and the entire hallway went cold. Then the door slammed shut on its own, before she could go in.”
Devin’s grandma pauses, bites her lip, then adds something all in a rush, keeping her eyes on the pot she’s stirring. Devin sighs softly as he translates, running a hand over his fade.
“She’s worried it’s an evil spirit. That maybe something terrible happened in the house before she had it. Sometimes she thinks she hears little voices up there, crying out.”
Aiden and I exchange a glance over the plates of food we’ve been demolishing.
“Anything else?” Aiden asks quietly, directing his question to Devin’s grandma.
Devin listens to her answer, then adds -
“She’s seen a shadow moving by her window, some nights. She says it seemed like it was trying to get in.”
~~~~
“So dope,” I say eagerly, bounding up the stairs. “Classic haunting, this!”
“I don’t understand how you decide what you are and aren’t scared of, man. There’s not an inch of rhyme or reason to it.” Aiden follows me up the stairs, then to the much smaller stairway that leads to the attic door. “I still don’t get what we’re doing here. We really shouldn’t be advertising ourselves as professional ghost hunters.”
“What happened to, we’re professionals, Jamie - and we didn’t advertise at all! We were sought out, which is even more exciting.”
“But are we professional enough that we should actually be hired out? To solve real problems for people?” Aiden anxiously shifts the straps of his backpack on his massive shoulders. “We don’t even have any equipment.”
“We don’t need any equipment. We’ve got this!” I point to Aiden’s eyes, then to mine. “And these! What we do need are some uniforms, or at least some matching jackets. Devin is completely right about that.”
“You know there’s no ghost in this attic,” Aiden groans, even as he slips the ghost glasses onto his face. “Do you really want to go downstairs and tell that poor sweet old lady this is all in her head?”
“That’s no way to look at it! What we’re doing is confirming that there’s nothing here for her to be afraid of, putting her mind at ease! I think this could classify as Guardian work, honestly. For Devin, too. At the very least, for his lower back.” I push open the attic door, then stop to look earnestly up at Aiden. “Come on, can’t we just take a look? See if there’s anything we can do to help?”
Aiden pauses for a moment, then lets out a huge, aggrieved sigh. I give him an adoring, eager smile, and he begrudgingly returns it as he follows me into the attic. I know he’s curious about what the hell is going on up here, despite his hesitations.
We stop to look around when his fingers find the light switch. The attic is bigger than I expected, dimly lit. Carefully and neatly organized, just like the kitchen downstairs. The few pieces of furniture up here are protected with dust sheets, turning them into hulking, dark shapes.
Aiden and I automatically pull out our flashlights and shine them around the space, examining the tidy stacks of moving boxes, the dusty rafters.
Aiden runs a hand over his rich stubble, his blue eyes following the beam from his light. “Okay… well, no ghosts on the first impression.”
I nod at him to confirm I can’t see anything beyond his scope. We took the time to supercharge my Vision before we came.
Aiden wanders deeper into the attic, and I cross back to where we came in. I run my flashlight over the old wooden door, which looks original to the house. It’s sagging with age, spangled with tiny cracks. Apparently it slammed shut all on its own, right before the eyes of Devin’s grandma.
Aiden’s deep voice reaches me from across the attic.
“Jamie. Do you feel that?”
I do feel it. I turn to face him in confusion, startled to find myself shivering. The little windows of the attic are all sealed closed, but suddenly it’s icy enough in here to raise goosebumps on my arms.
“Where’s that coming from?”
Aiden shrugs his shoulders uncertainly. “Is it way colder over there? You look like you’re freezing. I’m only kind of feeling it over here.”
“Really?” I back away from the door. “This must be the spot of the highest activity, then. This is where Devin’s grandma felt the cold current, saw the door slam shut on its own… although…”
I take a closer look at the door, warped with age and not quite sitting right on its hinges. I experimentally pull it all the way open, then let it go. The moment I do, the cold current of air takes it and it slams shut, with enough force to make me take a startled step back.
Aiden and I look at each other in surprise.
“Wherever that cold current is coming from, it’s strong enough to shut the door. That’s not saying much, though. This thing is falling off its hinges.” I move out of the invisible stream of cold air, retreating to Aiden for some warmth. “At least we know the ghost isn’t going around slamming doors. Which, you know. Good, because that would be rude.”
Aiden folds an arm around my shivering body, instantly soothing the cold. “Unless the ghost is making the cold current.”
“Could it do that, though? That’s way more power than either Will or Kasey has.” An idea comes into my head as I gratefully absorb Aiden’s warmth. “Hey, Heliomancer - can you make it hot in here? So we can find the source of the cold? If the difference between the cold air and the hot air is more obvious, it might be easier to follow.”
Aiden turns it over in his mind, then shrugs his shoulders.
“Yeah, guess so. C’mere, let me channel it through you. Don’t want to blow the roof off of Devin’s grandma’s house.”
“No,” I laugh, weaving my fingers through his. “Let’s not, please.”
Aiden’s eyes swirl with white-blue light as he takes my hand. He closes them for a moment, lowering his head to focus.
I gasp softly as a ribbon of golden light gathers into shape, winding in mid-air through the attic.
“Aiden - what did you do?”
He opens his light-filled eyes, then gives a start when he sees the flowing length of light.
“Shit! I think I illuminated the cold, somehow. God, normally I don’t fuck up with just heat.” He blushes in embarrassment, dropping my hand. “I’m nervous, okay? This is someone else’s house!”
I flash him a giant grin. “This is even better, you do realize that? You did something better than what I asked for.”
“Oh. Yeah.” Aiden stuffs his hands into his pockets, slightly abashed. “Yeah. Totally what I meant to do, the whole time. Forget that other stuff I said, won’t you?”
I let out a laugh as I set off across the attic, following the winding line of light, pulling Aiden with me.
“Shut up, dude,” he whispers, fighting down a laugh of his own. “What if there actually is a ghost? Don’t we want the element of surprise-?”
“No, I think we go in strong, in case this turns into some kind of epic ghost-battle,” I whisper confidentially, then cup my hand around my mouth to shout at the rafters. “Get ready, ghost! We’re hot on your trail, your literal trail! And we’re not scared of you!”
Aiden makes an agonized sound, then huffs out a helpless laugh. “I’d like to amend that introduction in a few different ways.”
But before he can do that, we reach the end of the light trail, and it’s time to meet the ghost.
~~~~
Devin and his grandma look up at us in total confusion when we step back into the kitchen. I don’t think they expected Aiden and me to come back with victorious grins on our faces, but I suspect it’s what I have bundled up in my arms that’s caught their attention.
“We found the problem!” I tell them brightly, holding it out. “Turns out it’s not a ghost. Still very much alive and - kicking, as you can see!”
The bone-thin, harassed-looking tabby cat twists and squirms in my hands, vigorously trying to kick my forearms. Devin and his grandma stare at her in blank disbelief.
“Okay, where the hell did you find that cat?” Devin sputters. He sets down his BFRA mug and gets to his feet, his brown eyes very wide. “I checked all over that attic, I never found a cat up there!”
“That’s not all that was up there,” Aiden puts in, moving around me.
Devin and his grandma both gasp when they see what Aiden has in his arms. My flannel, wrapped around five tiny, chubby, grey and brown kittens, so young that their ears aren’t upright yet.
All of the kittens begin mewing as soon as Aiden shifts the fabric enough to uncover them. One of the braver ones immediately launches on a mission to escape, determinedly struggling her way out of Aiden’s arms.
“What-?” Devin stares at the kittens in amazement. “No way, can’t be - they were in the attic?”
“Not exactly. They were in a vent that Aiden and I found. Looks like it’s been sealed up for ages, but the hinges were really rusted. They probably all gave at once. We think the cat came through the vent into your grandma’s attic, looking for someplace warm to have her kittens. You and your grandma have both been up there, so she brought them back into the vent. But the vent being open seems to have created a pathway for blasts of freezing air to come through whenever your neighbor turns on their air-conditioning.”
“Which is probably why it was sealed up in the first place,” Aiden adds, gently placing my flannel on the kitchen table, kittens and all.
“The little voices,” Devin groans in realization, watching the kittens wriggle around in the crimson folds of fabric. “The cat probably brought them into the attic every time the vent got too cold!”
“The vent opens up right near your grandma’s bedroom window on the first floor,” I explain, leaving off how we figured that out by sending Aiden’s light down it. “So that’s the shadow she’s been seeing. The cat going in and out.”
Devin’s grandma suddenly recovers from her surprise. She gently takes the distressed tabby from my arms, her expression filling with concern as she sees how skinny she is beneath her fur. She clicks her tongue, then says something softly to the little cat, who stops struggling and looks up at her with exhausted eyes.
“Aiden and I blocked off the vent,” I tell Devin, picking up a pen to write on the notepad next to his grandma’s phone. “If you want to get it fixed properly, and also replace that old door, this is our friend Raj’s number. He and his husband do repairs like this all the time. Sometimes they bring their baby, so I hope that’s okay.”
Devin’s grandma makes a soft sound of delight when Devin translates the part about a baby being involved. Devin laughs, then slowly sinks down at the kitchen table, looking overcome with relief. Like he can see his own bed right before his eyes.
The most fearless of the kittens has made it all the way to the edge of the little nest formed from my flannel. She scrambles out onto the kitchen table, then sets off on an immediate mission to reach the edge of that. Devin picks her up without thinking about it, then strokes her tiny forehead with his thumb, still looking up at us.
“Shit, guys, what can I say?” he laughs. “Besides thank fucking god, that is.”
Devin’s grandma understood enough of that to give him a sharp, indignant scold, but she laughs with relief, too, looking a little shaky. She beams up at me and Aiden, clasping the cat to her chest, then gently sets her down on the kitchen floor.
The exhausted cat weakly, slowly sets off towards her kittens. But she freezes to the spot as Devin’s grandma opens a can of tuna and sets it on the floor. She hesitates, then streaks across the kitchen to it. But she keeps an eye on her kittens while she eats, watching all of us with obvious suspicion.
Devin’s grandma peers down at the kittens, one of whom is trying to follow his adventurous sibling down onto the kitchen table. He takes a bit of a tumble, and lets out a pitiful, keening mew upon his ungraceful landing. Devin’s grandma scoops him up, gently rubs his tiny paw with her fingertip.
“Sana sana colita de rana…” she laughs, in a coaxing, sing-song voice.
She pauses, then looks up at Devin. She tells him something, and he grins at her, then turns to us.
“She says this ghost is not so scary, after all.” Devin smiles when Aiden and I laugh, then adds - “And she says thank you for figuring it out.”
“Is that all she said?” I ask, realizing he’s trying not to laugh.
Devin bites his lip. “There was another thing about how tall Aiden is, but I didn’t feel the need to include that.”
“Come on,” Aiden groans, as I smother my laughter behind my hands.
Devin gets to his feet and draws us aside, casting a quick glance at his grandma as she pours out a bowl of water for the tabby.
“How much do I owe you?” he asks softly. “Is it the same fee, regardless of whether it turns out to be a ghost or a cat?”
“We don’t need payment,” Aiden answers firmly. “Except - we wouldn’t say no to more of that food we had before we went upstairs. That can be our payment, if your grandma doesn’t mind.”
Devin blinks in surprise. “What - really?”
“Any money you would have paid us would have been spent on food, regardless,” I inform him. “Only it probably wouldn’t be as good as the food we can get right here, so. Believe me, we’re sure. We discussed this in the attic after we found the cat.”
“It was the first thing we discussed,” Aiden confirms.
Devin lets out a little laugh. “Oh, man. I’m gonna let you tell my grandma that yourself. You’re gonna earn a permanent invite to this house, with that one.”
“Actually, I have something to tell her.” Aiden slips his backpack off of his shoulder, then rummages around inside until he comes out with a file. “Can you help me out?”
“Sure,” Devin says, with a curious glance at the file. “Abuela, hey.”
She turns around, then draws back in surprise when Aiden offers her the file. After a moment she accepts it and opens it, her dark brown eyes roving over the photos and files inside.
“We did some research before we came here,” Aiden explains, as Devin translates. “I’m the archivist at Ketterbridge City Hall, so I reached out to your town archivist here to get some background information. Just in case you’re still worried about evil spirits, I can confirm that there’s no record of any kind of unusually terrible event happening here that would cause something like that.”
Aiden points to the file, tapping one of the pages with his finger.
“There’s all the history on your house, and a little bit about your street, too. That copy is for you to keep, in case you find any of it interesting. But there’s no reason we can see to believe that your house is haunted. Beyond the cat. And the kittens. Devin can go home, is what I’m saying. You’ll be alright.”
Devin’s grandma gives Aiden a warm, relieved smile when Devin finishes speaking. Devin closes his eyes for a moment, then mouths over his grandma’s head - thank you.
“I’m telling all my friends that if they need a ghost investigated, I know what to do,” he announces, wrapping an arm around his grandma’s shoulders. “Hit up the Ghost Office, and everything will be just fine.”
~~~~
Aiden is clearly still thinking about that when we emerge from the house some time later, having eaten so much that we may never eat again.
“I guess… could that be a good thing?” he asks, as we walk down the sidewalk towards my car. “If people know to come to us when they’re having some kind of supernatural problem? I mean… we can clear it up for them, because that’s probably not what it is.”
“Right,” I agree, inwardly a little relieved. It sounds like we’re on the same page. “And if it is a supernatural problem, we’d want to know about it anyways, wouldn’t we?”
“Yeah,” Aiden murmurs thoughtfully. “It would be one hell of an outside chance, but there have been Guardians active in this area for centuries. Ariana left behind pieces of her magic, and Rose did, too. Both of them without meaning to. Others might have done the same, right? There could be other stuff we really should investigate.”
I stop and lean my elbows on the roof of my car, gazing across it at Aiden. He’s deep in thought, his glossy chestnut hair gilded with the falling sunset light.
“It would be good,” I try, watching him tentatively. “If people knew to come to us. To the Ghost Office.”
“We’d have to keep it lowkey, though,” he murmurs, fidgeting with the brim of his snapback. “Can’t attract too much attention.”
“Word of mouth business?” I suggest. “Maybe a few business cards, but - really, only very few? Five, or ten?”
Aiden rests his elbows on the other side of the roof of my car, his blue eyes lifting to my face. “And maybe like, one flyer on the community notice board at Raj and Ripley’s showroom.”
I spread my hands as I try to picture it. “Got paranormal problems?”
“Contact the Ghost Office,” Aiden finishes. “Everything will be just fine.”
We look at each other searchingly for a moment, then both dissolve into quiet laughter at the same time.
“I like this plan,” Aiden admits, breaking into a grin. “Don’t know if anyone else will ever use our services, but at least this way we have some kind of a feeler out there for any magical stuff going on.”
“And we can try to clear everything up for people who mistakenly think they’ve got a supernatural mess on their hands. Well, maybe not clear everything up, but you know what I mean.”
Aiden breathes out a soft huff of affectionate laughter. “Knowing you, yes, everything. You can’t help yourself.”
I open my mouth to protest, then whip around as Devin leans out of his grandma’s house and calls my name.
“I forgot to ask, dude!” he shouts down the quiet street. He holds up one of the kittens, who appears to be dozing gently in his palm. “You know anyone who wants a kitten, by any chance? Or - a few of them?”
I hesitate, thinking it over, then call back, “Not off the top of my head, no! But if you really can’t find anyone to take them, let me know! One of my students lives on a farm, maybe they could take some new mousers!”
Devin flashes me a grateful thumbs up, then disappears inside.
I turn back to Aiden, who’s bowed his head to hide his silent laughter, but I can see it shaking his shoulders.
“Okay, enough,” I groan, slumping against my car in defeat. But I brighten up immediately, looking at Aiden with hopeful eyes. “Are you serious, though? About this plan for the Ghost Office?”
“First thing’s first,” he answers, reaching across the car to ruffle my hair. “We’ve gotta ask the manager.”
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